HAVE Tom Cruise’s eccentricities alienated him from moviegoers and led to new film Knight And Day underperforming at the box office? Film Editor Henry Fitzherbert asked its director James Mangold...

Tom Cruise is in the firing line after the underperformance of Knight And Day, his latest blockbuster, in the US and the picture’s director James Mangold is sharing his pain.

“He’s a friend of mine and I find it very unfair,” says the 47-year-old director whose credits include the Oscar-winning Walk The Line and 3.10 To Yuma.

“If you compare him by the (box office) numbers to his peers there are other people getting a completely free pass. I think there are wildly unrealistic expectations placed upon him.”

Knight And Day, an action comedy in which Cruise co-stars with Cameron Diaz as a renegade spy, has earned $73million (£47million) in the US so far, trailing well behind the summer’s biggest blockbusters Inception, Twilight and the $380million (£243million) and counting of Toy Story 3.

SURPRISING: Sylvester Stallone shone in Cop Land

A throwback to traditional star-vehicles, whose appeal rests on the allure of its stars, the picture is a mix of action and comedy that is out of step with current tastes.

“The tone is unfamiliar in the marketplace now,” says Mangold, pointing out that movies have become very “segregated” with action films that are “serious and logic driven” and comedies that are very broad.

“Our goal was to charm you through the film in the style of some old-school films, not necessarily to make you laugh out loud all the time,” he says.

With Cruise playing a rather crazed CIA spy who gets entangled with Diaz’s ditzy innocent, Mangold was aiming to tap into Cruise’s lighter, more eccentric side, which is rarely showcased (away from Oprah Winfrey’s sofa, that is).

There’s something really funny about Tom, and joyous and also, to be honest, something eccentric about him; how hard working he is, how intense he is

Director James Mangold

“Tom’s an intense guy,” he admits. “He’s very physical but there’s something really funny about him and joyous and also, to be honest, something eccentric about him; how hard working he is, how intense he is.”

There are times, he says, when the superstar just needs to relax. The challenge on Knight And Day was to incorporate the star’s eccentricities so the character was no standard hero but a “unique guy with a loneliness and a misunderstood aspect to him”.

If US audiences failed to be charmed, to the extent that there is even talk of Cruise being replaced in the upcoming Mission: Impossible 4 (“I sincerely doubt it,” says Mangold) it won’t deter big stars from working with the director in the future. The New York filmmaker has a great track record of drawing out superb performances from major names, often showcasing sides of a performer hitherto unseen.

A case in point is Sylvester Stallone who arguably gave his most accomplished and atypical performance as an overweight, hearing-impaired policeman in 1997’s Cop Land. Mangold cast the Rocky star after giving him a stern talking-to.

“I said: ‘You’re never going to change the script, there’s not going to be any posse, you’re going to be alone, no Planet Hollywood jackets and that kind of thing. you don’t get out of the day early and you’re never going to tell me which is the right side of your face to shoot [apparently he favours his right side].’ ”

Stallone was rewarded with career-best reviews and Mangold, who entered the movie business as screenwriter for Disney in his early 20s, was established as a versatile writer-director, subsequently tackling romantic comedy (Kate and Leopold with Meg Ryan), musical drama (Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line) and the western (3.10 To Yuma).

“Most of my heroes are extremely versatile, whether it’s people like Mike Nichols or Sidney Lumet or Howard Hawks, bringing whatever skill-set they had to different genres,” he says.

If Stallone proved a pussycat you might expect Russell Crowe and Christian Bale to give the director a bit of trouble on the remake of 3.10 To Yuma, two actors not renowned for their easy-going charm, yet Mangold says they were both “a breeze”. That seems an unlikely claim but then he explains his tactic for tantrum avoidance on set: “It’s like a sports team. Things tend to get cranky when everyone feels like they’re failing. I try to avoid that.”

To do so he gives himself three days on set to win over the loyalty of his stars. “They arrive every day in their limo and have dreams and expectations of the work they are going to do that day. When they go home if what they actually did was less than they hoped, you’re in trouble.” Yet exceed those expectations in the first few days and the trust will bloom and two weeks in “you’ll suddenly have them in your hands,” he says.

Stars have even more reason to be cranky these days as their financial muscle is said to be waning, shouldered aside by the studios in favour of branded entertainment like comic books, computer games and toys.

It’s a development that Mangold is sanguine about, seeing it as a cyclical trend that will pass, although he admits it’s a particularly tough time for independent film.

“The movies are fighting for what they are about,” he says. “With the quality of what you can see on an HD television, what exactly defines a movie-going experience today? The answer is that it needs to be more of an event, whether that’s 3D or IMAX or movie stars.

“More and more of what would be called independent film, or dramatic film, is becoming the world of cable television. HBO makes what would have been Sundance (film festival) films.”